The Biden administration has issued an “Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy,” which includes initiatives intended to increase the competitiveness of small businesses, cut down on anti-competitive practices, and put limits on “Big Tech platforms” such as Facebook, Google and Amazon, with new privacy rules governing how they can collect and use data from their customers.
The order focuses on four areas of competition among technology companies: corporations buying up smaller competitors, enacting practices to lock out small businesses, gathering too much personal information, and limiting access to tools and materials to repair devices. It directs the FTC and FCC to take various actions to: ensure the competitiveness of small businesses online, put restrictions on the collection of user data, increase access to broadband internet, restore net neutrality rules, reduce anticompetitive clauses in employee contracts, and allow banking customers to more easily transfer their data.
Sources:
- Nextgov: Biden Executive Order on Competition Includes ‘Big Tech’
- Gov Info Security: Biden’s New Executive Order Looks to Address Data Privacy