The new US antitrust bill is accused of going too far! It will threaten the interests of consumers and third-party sellers

Foreign media reported that throughout 2021, members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate proposed a number of legislations to change U.S. antitrust laws to regulate online platforms suspected of abusing their market dominance, but these legislations would also threaten the interests of consumers and small businesses.

The report noted that while each piece of legislation has different chances of passing the two houses, they all limit consumers' online shopping options while ignoring the importance of online platforms to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Congress is currently reviewing a series of proposals that, if passed, would rewrite U.S. antitrust law. For example, one senator proposed "prohibiting platforms from requiring companies operating on their sites to purchase the platform's goods or services and prohibiting them from biasing search results in favor of the platform," and another senator proposed prohibiting large companies from acquiring smaller competitors.

The report said that both bills are designed to provide benefits to physical store giants located in the senator's state. Since the bills only target five technology companies, including Amazon, this leaves retailers such as Target and Walmart unaffected and suppresses their strongest online competitors.

Millions of small businesses and third-party sellers rely on unfettered online platforms to sell their goods, including 2 million businesses that use Amazon as a sales channel. Research shows that these businesses have an average of five different sales channels and sell on multiple online platforms at the same time.

The study also found that 87% of small and medium-sized businesses sell on Amazon and use at least one other online platform, including 54% on Walmart.com and 50% on eBay. In addition, many businesses also have their own physical stores and use other platforms such as Target or Etsy.

These numbers suggest that small businesses and third-party sellers have considerable choice in where to sell their products, and contrary to the argument that supporters of the bill might make, the market is not monopolized.

For small businesses, restrictions on how platforms like Amazon operate could be disastrous, forcing them to change the way they do business. If Amazon and other major online platforms are excluded from small businesses’ sales channels, it is difficult to understand how these antitrust measures will improve competition, help small businesses, and provide consumers with more choices.

Without such platforms with strong consumer influence, small businesses will have fewer opportunities to grow and hire new employees. This will suppress employment and prevent consumers from obtaining competitive prices and high-quality goods.

When lawmakers debate new antitrust proposals, they often frame the debate in terms of protecting consumers and competition. While protecting competition and consumers is undoubtedly an important hallmark of a healthy market, it should not come at the expense of small businesses.

Therefore, Congress should reject any new antitrust proposals that would change the way small businesses do business. Doing so would only cause unnecessary and potentially irreparable harm to the millions of small businesses and third-party sellers who rely on open online platforms, as well as to the many more consumers.

Editor ✎ Xiao Zhu/

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