The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee passed the American Innovation and online Choice Act by a vote of 16 to 6 on Thursday. In this vote, all six negative votes came from Republicans, and five Republican lawmakers voted for it. The bill was passed by bipartisanship, laying the foundation for a vote in the Senate.

The bill, sponsored by senators Amy Klobuchar and Chuck Grassley, has a significant impact on Amazon.Com Inc (AMZN.US), Apple Inc (AAPL.US) and Alphabet Inc-CL C (GOOG.US,GOOGL.US). However, according to the current wording of the bill, it also applies to other large platforms, such as Meta (FB.US) and TikTok. The bill would prohibit companies from giving additional advantages to their products on their own platforms. Smaller competitors say these companies play the role of goalkeepers, taking advantage of unfair business practices to maintain dominance.

If the bill is finally passed by the full Senate, Amazon.Com Inc will not simply decide to list his own brand products higher than those of third-party competitors in his search rankings. Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc-CL C can't unfairly rank their apps above their competitors in their mobile app stores. The same principle will apply to Alphabet Inc-CL C's ordinary search engine.

After the Senate vote, the main index reversed and fell late Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq giving up 2 per cent and falling in the last hour of trading on Thursday. the index closed down more than 10% from its November high on Wednesday, indicating a technical correction; the Dow rose more than 400 points in early trading and fell more than 1% in late trading.

The tech giants are actively trying to block the bill. In a letter to US lawmakers this week, Apple Inc warned that the two antitrust bills to be considered by the Senate would increase the risk of security vulnerabilities for iPhone users. Chamber of Progress, the trade group, said yesterday that White House support for the bill would be unpopular with voters on a political level and could hurt Democrats ahead of the mid-term congressional elections in November, as their polls show that voters in key states do not give priority to technology industry regulation.