Google and Amazon, tech giants, are apparently calling upon small business and local governments across the country to make contact with legislators on their behalf. As bipartisan antitrust bills gain momentum in Congress, the U.S. House as well as Senate, this effort appears to be a good one.
According to Congress, local chambers have reached out and contacted representatives of congressional offices through their respective Google centers or Amazon areas. Politico. Small businesses that rely on Amazon’s selling platform have also reportedly signed petitions, utilized email blasts, and obtained or participated in Zoom calls with lawmakers.
These operations are apparently frightened that Google’s and Amazon’s business models will be permanently harmed by proposed legislation; for instance, by making Amazon Prime or Google Docs more limited impossible.
S. 2992 (117) is a bill Amazon has reportedly targeted. It was co-sponsored multiple senators including Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R-IA). According to the bill, Amazon would not discriminate against their third-party competitors using their platforms or favour their products. Politico.
Kristin Rae founded Inspire Travel Luggage. Small-business owners like her rely on Amazon heavily for their customers. They are actively speaking out on Amazon’s behalf, Politico wrote. Rae reportedly met with lawmakers from her state via Zoom to discuss the potential damage legislation could do to Amazon’s current business model, and perhaps her own. Rae was mentioned in an Amazon blog post. “It was like it was written by somebody who didn’t understand e-commerce,” Rae stated of S. 2992 (117), according to Politico.
About two dozen lawmakers, including Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO) and David Cicilline (D-RI), co-sponsored the House version of Klobuchar and Grassley’s bill: H.R. 3816 (117). “[Tech giants are] using scare tactics to try to gain favor with this bill,” Buck said, according to Politico. While he indicated that Amazon and Google were wrong in saying that the antitrust bills will harm small businesses, Buck also saw the “scare tactics” as being possibly successful, Politico wrote. In June, the House Judiciary Committee approved a whole package of tech-oriented bills.
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