President Biden was recently observed addressing Congress during his second State of the Union speech on Wednesday.
The country’s head of state urged to take matters linked to privacy and antitrust seriously and pass the respective legislation regarding that ordeal. Moreover, his comments on the matter put a special reference to the need of stopping tech firms from favoring products that belonged to them. And that’s one of the major concerns that many in the industry have against Apple.
For now, the Cupertino firm is still under immense pressure from global companies and lawmakers regarding its current policies at the App Store. And most of them had to do with the American market.
In 2019, Congress started an investigation into some of the leading tech names including the top iPhone maker. It was found to engage in some very disturbing behavior that served as anti-competition for several others. Still, not a lot was done in this regard.
Then in 2021, the country’s judiciary committee signed the US choice and innovation online act bill that would deem it illegal for firms to provide preferential treatment to some of their own goods over those belonging to fellow arch rivals that were seen hosting on the exact platform. And in the end, it would ban the iPhone maker from enabling in-app subscriptions for Apple Music while ensuring Spotify set out charges for the same offering.
But as expected, tech giant Apple was not going to sit in silence against such laws. They managed to lobby hard against the laws and ended up issuing letters and making phone calls while publishing some white papers to highlight their stance on the matter. They called it their truth. And while the bill never made it to the likes of a real vote, accusations were hurled about it arising due to a huge sum of finances being involved through the likes of lobbyists.
But just like this, so many similar bills were introduced in the recent past and have entailed the likes of both the Senate and the House. However, none of them were given enough support to reach the final conclusion of being a vote.
President Biden says it is now time for action on the matter and it’s also hard to pass out such laws to prevent huge tech names in the industry from taking user’s data including those belonging to younger audiences online. It’s also not easy to stop targeted advertising related to children but it needs to be done. And he’s making sure Congress feels pressurized to impose harsher limits on the likes of personal data that these firms may collect.
In the same way, the President feels both parties are showcasing a great likelihood of working side by side on pivotal matters. US citizens are expecting so much, he went on to reiterate.
Whether or not the US Congress will listen to the requests made, only time can tell. For now, we’re just going to have to wait patiently.
Read next: What’s the Most Toxic Platform on the Internet?
The country’s head of state urged to take matters linked to privacy and antitrust seriously and pass the respective legislation regarding that ordeal. Moreover, his comments on the matter put a special reference to the need of stopping tech firms from favoring products that belonged to them. And that’s one of the major concerns that many in the industry have against Apple.
For now, the Cupertino firm is still under immense pressure from global companies and lawmakers regarding its current policies at the App Store. And most of them had to do with the American market.
In 2019, Congress started an investigation into some of the leading tech names including the top iPhone maker. It was found to engage in some very disturbing behavior that served as anti-competition for several others. Still, not a lot was done in this regard.
Then in 2021, the country’s judiciary committee signed the US choice and innovation online act bill that would deem it illegal for firms to provide preferential treatment to some of their own goods over those belonging to fellow arch rivals that were seen hosting on the exact platform. And in the end, it would ban the iPhone maker from enabling in-app subscriptions for Apple Music while ensuring Spotify set out charges for the same offering.
But as expected, tech giant Apple was not going to sit in silence against such laws. They managed to lobby hard against the laws and ended up issuing letters and making phone calls while publishing some white papers to highlight their stance on the matter. They called it their truth. And while the bill never made it to the likes of a real vote, accusations were hurled about it arising due to a huge sum of finances being involved through the likes of lobbyists.
But just like this, so many similar bills were introduced in the recent past and have entailed the likes of both the Senate and the House. However, none of them were given enough support to reach the final conclusion of being a vote.
President Biden says it is now time for action on the matter and it’s also hard to pass out such laws to prevent huge tech names in the industry from taking user’s data including those belonging to younger audiences online. It’s also not easy to stop targeted advertising related to children but it needs to be done. And he’s making sure Congress feels pressurized to impose harsher limits on the likes of personal data that these firms may collect.
In the same way, the President feels both parties are showcasing a great likelihood of working side by side on pivotal matters. US citizens are expecting so much, he went on to reiterate.
Whether or not the US Congress will listen to the requests made, only time can tell. For now, we’re just going to have to wait patiently.
Read next: What’s the Most Toxic Platform on the Internet?
