Cade will investigate whether platforms committed abuse of dominant position

This Tuesday (2nd), the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) instituted a preparatory procedure for an administrative inquiry to investigate alleged abuse of a dominant position by Google and Meta, within the scope of discussions related to the Bill (PL ) 2,630/20. Known as the Fake News PL, the text aims to regulate social networks. Cade took the decision after receiving several complaints against the Google and Meta platforms pointing to the alleged campaign against the project on these networks and also on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. In the document, Cade says that companies are being investigated in other surveys that investigate signs of violation of the economic order. “This council is attentive and actively seeking to combat violations of the economic order in digital markets, which, due to the characteristic dynamism of such markets, call for the adoption of swift and precise measures by the antitrust authorities”, says Cade’s dispatch. According to the complaints, in recent days, the Google and Meta platforms have used all possible resources to prevent the approval of the project, under discussion in the National Congress. Among the measures would be the presentation of biased search results for users who search for terms related to the bill, privileging content critical of the text and preventing the publication on social networks of positions favorable to the proposal. Therefore, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in São Paulo (MPF-SP) issued an official letter to the company Google requesting information on the alleged favoring of contrary results PL 2.630/20. The agency cites a study by researchers from the Internet and Social Media Studies Laboratory (NetLab), at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), called The War of the Platforms against PL 2,630, which shows the various initiatives of the platforms in this regard. . The National Consumer Secretariat (Senacon) also spoke out, which determined that Google would immediately comply with a series of precautionary measures to correct the evidence that it was censoring the public debate on the bill. As it has already given wide publicity to the criticisms of the proposed regulation of digital platforms, Google will also have to start broadcasting, within two hours of being notified of the decision, positions favorable to the bill. If it fails to comply with Senacon’s determinations, the company will be fined R$ 1 million per hour.

Agência Brasil