Meta’s Market Cap Crash Could Help to Dodge US Antitrust Bill

By PYMNTS

When Meta announced its quarterly results last week and warned about the strong competition that is facing from other companies like TikTok, the price of its shares plunged, wiping out $230 billions of market value. The biggest one-day loss in history.

But maybe this big loss could offer a silver lining for the social media giant. Meta’s current market value stands at $612 billion, which is just $62 billion above the threshold established in the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act is a bill passed by the Senate Committee which aims at preventing Big Tech firms from favoring their own services over others. This bill, if approved, would make unlawful to unfairly preference a platform’s own products, services or lines of businesses over those of another business user and to limit the ability of another business user’s products, services to compete on the platform. Competitors and businesses have complained regularly that Google and Amazon systematically favored their own products when consumers use the search engine or a marketplace. Google was fined 2.7 billion euros for this practice in Europe and is in the spotlight for allegedly favoring its vertical businesses like Google Maps or Google Flights. If approved, this bill would put an end to this type of practice, or at least make it very hard for these companies to engage in it.

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