On Friday, June 11th, the U.S. House of Representatives released five bills that still exist in draft form. Antitrust reforms supported by lawmakers from both parties could reshape the business norms of America's tech giants, with Amazon.Com Inc, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc-CL C being named directly.

The analysis said that this can be regarded as the "greatest legislative effort" by a congressional subcommittee so far against a small number of technology companies, and if the bill is passed in both houses of Congress, the four technology giants will have to completely change their business practices, making acquisitions more difficult, or even torn apart.

Amazon.Com Inc changed from rising to falling on Friday and closed slightly lower. Facebook Inc closed down 0.4%, Alphabet Inc-CL C's parent company Alphabet closed down 0.2%, and only Apple Inc closed up nearly 1%.

Specifically, the five draft bills published today are:

Termination of platform Monopoly Act: online market platforms will not have their own business that can use the platform to sell or provide products or services, or purchase services as a condition for customers to access the platform. Companies that operate the above market platforms cannot have businesses that create conflicts of interest, such as creating incentives to make proprietary products or services superior to competitors on the platform.

The US Choice and Innovation online Act aims to crack down on "gatekeepers' self-preference" and prohibits dominant market platform operators from making proprietary products and services superior to those of competitors on the platform. The leading platform is also prohibited from other types of discrimination, such as cutting off competitors from using the services provided by the platform, and prohibiting the leading platform from using data collected in its services that are not disclosed to the public to promote proprietary products and services.

Enhance compatibility and competitiveness by enabling the Exchange of Services (ACCESS) Act: leading market platforms need to establish data portability and interoperability with competitors that meet certain standards, such as making it easier for consumers to bring their data to other platforms, users of different social media to communicate, or allowing e-commerce sellers to import customer reviews from one platform to another.

Platform Competition and opportunity Act: makes it illegal for large online platforms to acquire competitors or potential competitors, and shifts the burden of proof to the dominant market platform in the acquisition review, that is, the platform needs to prove that its acquisition is legal, instead of the government proving that such acquisitions will curb competition.

Modernization of M & An application fees: this is a supporting version of the bill passed by the Senate on Tuesday, which aims to increase the fees for consideration of mergers worth more than $1 billion with the FTC and the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice, while reducing filing fees for mergers and acquisitions worth less than $500000, which is expected to generate about $135 million in revenue for antitrust law enforcement agencies in the first year of implementation.

Four of the above five drafts are "for large technology companies only". The definition of a qualified company is that it must have a market capitalization of $600 billion or more, more than 50 million monthly active users or 100000 monthly active business users. and must be a "key trading partner" with the ability to restrict or prevent other companies from accessing customers or services.

This makes Amazon.Com Inc, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc-CL C the only four tech giants that meet the criteria, and coincides with other targets of congressional investigations into large technology companies, according to people familiar with the matter. It is worth noting that Walmart Inc, the largest US retailer, is also operating an online market platform and selling proprietary products, but only $392 billion in market capitalization is excluded from the draft.

In summary, the termination of platform Monopoly Act and the US Choice and Innovation online Act will require large technology companies led by Amazon.Com Inc to carry out structural separation in order to spin off, sell or divest their own brand business. it may change the way Amazon.Com Inc conducts retail business and Apple Inc operates its app store. The bill also does not allow search engines to have their own video services that may be favored in search results, resulting in the direct naming of Alphabet Inc-CL C's YouTube and a sharp delay in the acquisition of dominant technology companies.

It is conceivable that the technology industry lobby groups supported by the four technology giants have jumped out to express their strong dissatisfaction. Some people say that "adopting the European regulatory model will make it more difficult for US technology companies to innovate and compete at home and around the world," while others say that once the bill is approved, consumers will lose dozens of popular functions, including Amazon.Com Inc's free delivery service for some products, Apple Inc's inability to pre-install "Find My" to find lost property on his equipment, and the content on App,Facebook cannot be easily shared with Instagram.

But David Cicilline, the top Democratic member of the antitrust subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, which released the drafts, said that "unregulated technology monopolies have too much power over our economy. They are in a unique position to pick winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise consumer prices and put people out of work." the bill aims to create a level playing field. Ken Buck, the top Republican member of the subcommittee, also said that breaking the monopoly of tech giants could foster an online market that encourages innovation.

The analysis pointed out that these bills need the general support of the House Judiciary Committee to enter the House of Representatives to vote, and then need to be approved by the Senate before they can be signed into law by the president. Many Republican lawmakers have been skeptical about changing the century-old antitrust law, making it difficult for the bill to pass the Senate.

But the House bill, which is rarely supported by both parties, still sends a strong signal to the technology industry that lawmakers from both parties believe that the tech giants have too much power, fearing unfair competition and curbing innovation. And if these US technology companies with the highest valuations are forced to change their business practices, they will naturally have an impact on all aspects of everyone's life and work, because their products and services are inextricably linked to modern life.

In addition to congressional efforts to reform the antitrust law, the US federal administrative law enforcement agency is also finding fault with the technology giants. Alphabet Inc-CL C and Facebook Inc are both fighting related antitrust lawsuits, and Amazon.Com Inc and Apple Inc are also under antitrust investigation. The House Judiciary Committee has previously proposed to amend the antitrust law to better cope with the new situation of market competition in the digital age.