| Happy Thursday! Today is one of the most pivotal days ever for Congress' efforts to rein in the tech giants. Keep reading for more on that.
Below: How Microsoft dodged Capitol Hill's ire with its nearly $70 billion Activision Blizzard deal, and Texas sues Google over its radio ads. | Tech giants say antitrust legislation is being 'rushed.' History suggests otherwise. |  Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) is the lead Republican on a bill targeting self-preferencing by tech giants. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) | | | Congress is often criticized for moving too slowly. But as lawmakers prepare to advance their most aggressive proposals to crack down on Silicon Valley giants to date, tech companies and their lobbying groups are accusing Congress of acting too hastily. A slew of trade groups that represent behemoths like Google and Apple have blasted the Senate Judiciary Committee for marking up antitrust legislation without first holding a dedicated hearing where outside experts could critique and offer feedback. Without that step, lawmakers are effectively speeding through the debate, the groups have argued. But political scientists say that history tells a different story, and data on legislative proceedings suggest some of the bills in consideration may be among the most extensively deliberated on Capitol Hill of late. At odds is a bipartisan proposal set to be voted on Thursday to ban dominant platforms from favoring their goods and services, a practice known as self-preferencing, and a separate bill slated for full consideration as early as next week aimed at regulating major app stores. While the first bill was only just introduced in the Senate in October, its House counterpart has been subject to extensive and heated debate, including a marathon markup session that stretched over two days in July. That markup was preceded by a separate legislative hearing and a 16-month-long probe into online competition that produced a 450-page report with recommendations on legislative remedies. An array of tech companies big and small, their critics, advocacy groups and regulators weighed in frequently throughout the probe and during the bill drafting process. While the Senate panel hasn't held a formal legislative hearing on their version of the bills, it has held several hearings related to competition online that touched on the concepts behind the bills, including digital innovation and app stores. | | What's more: Political scientists say that legislative hearings have become increasingly rare on Capitol Hill, and a large segment of bills get less formal consideration at the committee level. Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University, noted that a big chunk of House bills head to the floor without ever even getting a markup. "It's a leader-driven Congress, and committees have often taken a back seat in the legislative process as a result," said Binder, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Sean Theriault, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies congressional decision-making, said it's become "exceedingly rare" for bills to go through the full regular order, including legislative hearings and markups before floor debate. "If we went back 30 years, we would see a lot more bills going through the regular order and ultimately being passed, but as leadership has consolidated its power, it becomes rarer and rarer," Theriault said. Instead, he added, lawmakers now often opt to instead "put a bunch of things together … call it a package, and they use whatever procedures they need to in order to get it passed." Proponents of the antitrust push say the companies are trying to run out the clock on the legislation ahead of the midterms, which could delay or even scramble legislative plans. Katie McInnis, senior public policy manager at search engine DuckDuckGo, called the arguments "self-serving" and said it "delays the Senate process to their benefit as there is a limited time frame for Congress to act before the midterms get rolling." Luther Lowe, senior vice president of public policy at Yelp, noted that the Senate panel "has been probing and holding hearings on self-preferencing for over a decade." He added, "The time to strengthen our antitrust laws is not moving too fast, it is long overdue." | | Major tech companies and groups they fund have argued that given the vast potential impact of the proposals, the panel should give them more public scrutiny. NetChoice President Steve DelBianco, whose group counts Amazon and Facebook as members, wrote in an op-ed that the legislation should be put to the "sunshine" test: an "open hearing to air very real concerns" about how it may harm consumers. Kent Walker, Google's global affairs chief, argued in a blog post that the legislation could harm security and privacy, adding that "Congress shouldn't rush to judgment, and should instead take more time to consider the unintended consequences of these bills." A spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the lead Republican sponsor on the self-preferencing bill, pushed back on claims the process has been rushed, accusing groups funded by the tech giants of "misrepresenting both the bill and the process." "Furthermore, the process is precisely following the committee's regular order. … As far as lawmaking processes go, this one has been exhaustive and thoughtful," said George Hartmann, Grassley's spokesman. Theriault said demanding additional hearings can serve as a "delaying mechanism" for the tech companies, but ultimately, it's at Congress' discretion to figure when it has enough information and support to move ahead on legislation. "You can imagine lots of reasons why tech companies would want there to be hearings, but Congress at the end of the day gets to decide whether or not it needs to gain more information or not," he said. "If it's ready to act, then it can." | | |  | Our top tabs | | Washington's silence over Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition underscores the company's reputation, sophistication |  Microsoft President Brad Smith has been the company's Washington envoy. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) | | | Many of Congress's aggressive trustbusters have been uncharacteristically quiet in the days since Microsoft announced that it planned to buy Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion, Cat Zakrzewski reports. Microsoft is valued more than Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook, but has quietly built its reach across the tech industry without getting on policymakers' nerves, Cat writes. "Two decades after fighting its own antitrust battles in Washington, Microsoft has emerged as a sophisticated and experienced Washington operator, positioning itself as a willing participant in regulation and developing relationships that engender rare trust," Cat writes. "The company has come a long way since its own antitrust fight, that began in the '90s, when it was viewed as an arrogant competitor with little regard for politicking." | The online followings of pro-Trump influencers have barely grown over the past year |  The findings raise questions about whether a fractured social media ecosystem — potentially including former president Donald Trump's social media network — can thrive based on courting conservatives. (Alex Brandon/AP) | | | The followings of nearly four dozen prominent right-wing influencers who went to Gab, Gettr, Rumble and Telegram after mainstream sites banned former president Donald Trump immediately surged. But in the year since, those audiences have barely grown — and some even declined, Jeremy B. Merrill and Drew Harwell report. "The data helps strengthen the case for supporters of 'deplatforming' who argue that banning the accounts of people known for distributing lies can have a powerful impact on their ability to win mainstream attention or political influence," Jeremy and Drew write. "It also calls into question whether this new and polarized online ecosystem — possibly to be joined soon by Trump's long-promised social network, Truth Social — can build a sustainable business solely by catering to a radicalized right." | Texas's attorney general sued Google, accusing it of misleadingly advertising its flagship phone |  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said the ads violated a state law forbidding deceptive ads. (Emil Lippe for The Washington Post) | | | Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said the company's ads featuring radio personalities who endorsed the Pixel 4 phone didn't provide honest endorsements because the phone hadn't been released yet and they weren't given sample phones. Paxton said that broke a Texas law targeting deceptive advertising. "We will review the complaint, but the AG's allegations appear to misrepresent what occurred here," Google spokesperson José Castañeda said. "We take compliance with advertising laws seriously and have policies in place designed to help ensure we follow relevant regulations and industry standards." | | |  | Rant and rave | | | Apple released a teaser for "WeCrashed," a miniseries about WeWork featuring actor Jared Leto as co-founder Adam Neumann. Writer and editor Dan Rowinski: | | The Verge's Esther Cohen: | | |  | Inside the industry | | | |  | Agency scanner | | | |  | Trending | | | |  | Daybook | | - The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a business meeting today at 9 a.m. It is set to discuss legislation that would restrict tech giants from giving their services an edge over those of their rivals.
- FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips discusses data privacy at an event hosted by the National Cybersecurity Alliance and LinkedIn on Jan. 26.
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