Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is calling on Microsoft to face the same antitrust scrutiny as other large tech platforms in a letter to the company Monday.<\/p>\n
In the letter, Jordan asks Microsoft president Brad Smith if he believes the company would be affected by the swath of antitrust bills introduced in the House earlier this month. There are five bills in total, spanning from offering up more money for antitrust enforcers to banning large tech platforms from buying up small competitors.<\/p>\n
The antitrust package came out of a yearslong investigation into Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The measures focus on the anticompetitive behaviors of these four companies, and it\u2019s not as clear how they would affect other large companies like Microsoft. While Microsoft meets the standard laid out under these bills to be considered a \u201ccovered platform,\u201d like meeting the over $600 billion market cap and 50 million monthly active users, the bills don\u2019t target the company\u2019s specific lines of business.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig Tech, including Microsoft, Inc., is out to get conservatives,\u201d Jordan said in his Monday letter. \u201cIt is unclear why Microsoft has avoided significant attention from House Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n Assumably, Microsoft would face the same proposed standards in acquiring companies, like taking on the burden of proof, and making the data it takes from users more portable and usable on other platforms. But whereas Amazon and Apple would face more structural changes, like selling off separate lines of business, Microsoft would likely not be subject to the rules.<\/p>\n Jordan\u2019s letter, which also pointed out several instances he purports as Microsoft being biased against conservatives, comes as a rift is growing among the House Republican caucus over the package. While all five bills were introduced with Republican and Democrat co-sponsors, not all Republicans are on board. The Wall Street Journal<\/em> <\/em>reported last week that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) did not support the bills. <\/p>\n Jordan also seems to oppose the measures, opting to take different action against tech, like reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, to go after platforms that allegedly censor conservative speech.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrat impeachment managers don\u2019t care about conservative censorship. Their next big mission? Empower Big Tech and Big Government to make it worse,\u201d Jordan said in a tweet last week.<\/p>\n Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), the top Republican on the House antitrust subcommittee, called Jordan out over his criticism on Twitter, saying, \u201cUsing antitrust laws to stop Big Tech\u2019s bad behavior isn\u2019t Big Government, it\u2019s law enforcement,\u201d Buck said.<\/p>\n The House Judiciary Committee plans to mark up the package on Wednesday. It\u2019s unclear how every member plans to vote. Earlier this month, lobbyists for Rupert Murdoch\u2019s media companies, including Fox Corp. and News Corp., were urging House Republicans to vote in favor of the bills. On his show last Friday, Fox News<\/em> host Tucker Carlson also urged lawmakers to approve the bills.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tech monopolies are actually a threat to the country,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cIf you care about democracy, you need to break up the monopolies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is calling on Microsoft to face the same antitrust scrutiny…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[38,48,44,51,46,50,54,52,56,53,55],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1916,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions\/1916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cIt is unclear why Microsoft has avoided significant attention from House Democrats\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n