As US lawmakers considered adding antitrust bills to the omnibus spending package, tech trade group CCIA, Meta, Amazon, and more ramped up opposition to them
Industry has spent more than $100 million to fight antitrust measures and other bills in Congress — How Apple's iPhone and Apps Trap You in a Walled Garden
Wall Street Journal
Context & Ripple Effects
The push arrives during a lame-duck window in which the White House was seeking a final opening for measures including AICOA and the Open App Markets Act; Congress is now weighing whether to use the omnibus as that vehicle. Tech opposition had already been building: CCIA-backed ads targeted self-preferencing restrictions, while Amazon and Meta had set record federal lobbying spending in 2021.
The legislation is not a single unified proposal: the earlier House package contained bills with different—and at times conflicting—approaches to large consumer-tech platforms. That makes the industry’s coordinated campaign consequential both for whether any measure advances and for which version survives.
First-order effects
CCIA, Meta, Amazon, and allied companies concentrate their advocacy on lawmakers deciding the omnibus package, raising the political cost of attaching antitrust provisions.
Apple and other large platform operators gain from an industry-wide defense of business practices implicated by the proposed measures, even where individual bills differ in scope.
Congress must reconcile competing legislative designs while weighing a lobbying campaign that the coverage says has exceeded $100 million, making omnibus inclusion a higher-stakes procedural choice.
Third-order effects
If major platform rules repeatedly hinge on must-pass spending packages, US tech antitrust policy shifts from committee-by-committee lawmaking toward deadline-driven negotiations shaped by incumbent lobbying capacity.
The pattern reinforces platform gatekeepers’ ability to defend existing distribution and marketplace rules through coordinated political action, unless Congress develops a durable consensus across the competing bills.
The trend: US platform-antitrust policy is becoming a contest between broad congressional proposals and increasingly coordinated lobbying by the companies those proposals target.
The ban on TikTok on government devices has ended up in the omnibus. This was a Josh Hawley bill. Pelosi pushed for it in the omni https://twitter.com/...
There's a very serious eleventh-hour push to get OAMA, the app store bill, in the omnibus. Both Senate Judiciary leaders have signed off on it. But it still needs Schumer and McConnell's support.
This is crappy framing. Because it WAS an existential threat, and not just to them but to the entire ecosystem, which in theory is what we wanted to be more healthy. It was like a farming bill that required salting the earth. And now complaining that large farms stopped it. https…
Tech companies were really good at lobbying in the 80s (chips/SIA) and 90s (internet regs), but now they have bonkers $$$$ to spend on it, they're REALLY good https://twitter.com/...
From @birnbaum_e's AICOA postmortem: Dem senators pressed Klobuchar for content moderation amendments. She balked, worried about losing Rs. “Without the changes, Democrats walked.” https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Comprehensive look at how Big Tech political maneuvering and gobs of money (and, oh yes, plenty of dark money) defeated antitrust bills that would have help even the playing field.... https://twitter.com/...
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Wondering why four different important anti-monopoly bills with bipartisan majorities are being denied a Senate vote? My @econliberties colleague @matthewstoller explains in this important thread⬇️ https://twitter.com/...
Big Tech companies are pouring trillions of dollars into blocking crucial antitrust legislation. Now, four bills are up to Schumer's discretion whether to advance. Will he stand up for working people, honest businesses, and consumers? Or will he side with corporate monopolists? h…
By passing key antitrust legislation, @SenSchumer can stand up for working people and honest businesses — and help revert his years of defending corporate monopolists' behavior. @matthewstoller has the full context for this historic fight. https://mattstoller.substack.com/ ...
As the Senate works through the omnibus bill today, @SenSchumer has a crucial chance to rein in Big Tech's power by advancing antitrust legislation. Get caught up on the bipartisan bills that would help working families and honest businesses — not corporate monopolies.👇 https://t…
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.@PatHedger18: “The Open App Markets Act breaks critical cybersecurity protections and parental controls on smartphones essentially to subsidize multibillion dollar companies that produce violent video games and dating apps.” Read more @Protectaxpayers: https://www.protectingtaxp…
NEW: The app store bill (OAMA) may hitch a ride in the year-end omnibus (text released today). My colleague @KaitlynHarger has a new analysis out on the biggest winners from the bill: Gaming, dating, & streaming co's worth a combined $1.5 trillion https://medium.com/...
I hope people realize the US federal gov may shut down, pausing critical services & furloughing thousands of employees, because Apple & Google have corrupted our lawmakers to the extent our politician's would disable a gov rather than reign in corporate anticompetitive behavior. …
If the #AICOA and #OAMA bills do not pass in the US, it will show #BigTech that it can do whatever it wants to consumers, businesses, and society as a whole. @SenSchumer: include S.2992 and S.2710 to a vote before the end of the year. https://www.huffpost.com/...
Some tech news The Open App Markets Act — the app store bill — was indeed involved in omni talks at one point. It reached leadership, and one source says McConnell rejected inclusion. No word from his office, and unclear if there were other obstacles to its inclusion too
Here we go again: Tech hearings, legislation, debate, and discussion and now we're at the eleventh hour. But of course, Big Tech is making sure we walk away with no tech legislation. After calling for regulation to their industry. https://www.wsj.com/...
1. There's been a lot of work on monopoly power and big tech. Today, whether Congress passes any antitrust legislation is now up to one man. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer. https://mattstoller.substack.com/ ...
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Nobody is going to shut down the government to protect the Apple Tax. Tech startups across the US need @senschumer to stay firm here. OAMA and AICOA are critical for a level playing field for little tech (startups!) prospering so big tech can't squash them early. https://twitter.…
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Shame on Apple for this grotesque political propaganda campaign against the developers of apps that Apple profits from distributing. Apple is a monopoly and is the world's #1 profiteer from loot boxes and pay-to-win games. Apple must be stopped. https://twitter.com/...
Repeat after me: no one is going to threaten to shut down the government to help Big Tech No one is going to threaten to shut down the government to help Big Tech No one is going to threaten to shut down the government to help Big Tech Schumer can move #OAMA #AICOA if he wants ht…
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